Reilly, J.

1. In this case the Plaintiffs are a firm of cloth merchants trading at Tinnevelly. The Defendants are the South Indian Railway Company and the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway Company. The suit is for damages for the loss of a bale of cloth sent to the Plaintiffs by an Ahmeda-bad firm of merchants. It is admitted that this bale was despatched from Ahmedabad on the 9th of May, 1920, addressed to the Plaintiffs, and was entrusted to the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway Company at Ahmedabad for that purpose but was never delivered to the Plaintiffs. The District Munsif found that this bale was sent at owners risk under a railway receipt, Ex. B, which was endorsed by the Ahmedabad firm to the Plaintiffs, and that the Ahmedabad firm had executed a general risk-note, Ex. I, on 1st January, 1920, under which consignments sent by them by the railway were to be sent at owners risk. The terms of Ex. I are Whereas all consignments of goods or animals for which the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway Administration quotes both owners risk or special reduced rates and railway risk or ordinary rates are (unless I shall have entered into a special contract in